


Double Standard

by OfDarkMind



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Gen, OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfDarkMind/pseuds/OfDarkMind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Bliss Whitely, an undercover agent for Umbrella was sent in to Raccoon City with Albert Wesker to lead the STARS into the Arlkay Mountains. Each had their specific jobs. Only Captain Whitely's options changed with her emotions. Forcing her to do things she didn't have the heart to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Standard

The night’s debriefing of the recent attack on the hikers in the Arklay Mountains on the outskirts of Raccoon city had gone off the way all the other briefings had done in the past. Some showed varying degrees of tiredness and exasperation. The only two that really hadn’t seem to show much emotion, or rather, emotion that seemed to fit the fact that they had just been looking at some really disturbingly mutated bodies was Albert Wesker, the STARS captain and Captain Bliss Whitely, who had been flown in to assist in the case, recommended by Wesker for her excellence in criminal psychology and people skills and vetted by the police chief Irons.   
Bliss sat there in the back looking over the heads of Brad Vickers, Joseph Frost, Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield and Barry Burton to the formal Captain Wesker with a lazy grin on her face as her eyes switched from Wesker to Barry, back to Wesker, to the back of Chris’s head… then to Jill’s head… then to Brad, who was immediately in front of her.   
She had been here for a month, had been about these people for thirty days and while all of them responded remarkably well with her for as little as they knew of her, Brad Vickers for some reason was always tense and nervous around her. She wondered if he sensed something about her that put him off… then again… looking at him she imagined he didn’t get to see many women alone and in intimate situations, being this close to a couple gorgeous women would naturally put him off and it made her smile. Let’s face it, Jill is nothing to turn your nose up at… but Jill hadn’t taken to playing with the twitchy little ferret Vickers to watch him dance either. Bliss enjoyed this little bit of control she had over him. She didn’t worry about him going all out and accusing her of sexual harassment or anything, she hadn’t overtly done anything sexual to him. She can be a beast with a look… or an innocent brush of the finger on the top of a hand. Compared to her very controversial and many layered past, the stuff she was doing to Vickers was child’s play… innocent by all terms considering but no less delicious to watch him because she would never do anything to him. He really wasn’t the object of her attention, just a sort of slake when the true object of her wiles rebuffed her. Brad’s knee bobbed and there was a tick in his cheek.  
Now… she would have just assumed it was the slaughter they had just seen that made his tension sky high, but it wasn’t. He kept throwing nervous glances back at her every few minutes, when she shifted in her chair. She grinned to herself again, shifting in the chair more, crossing her legs so that her foot bobbed near his hip and she could see he was so tight from the tension it was a marvel he didn’t snap his own back. She knew, despite the fact that she wouldn’t, he would cave to her with minimal effort and she would have him begging for mercy. He is practically now. He would give her anything and everything she wanted, even what he thought he didn’t know. Now… if only the one she really wanted to be in Vickers’ place would be as forthcoming. Her hands came together lazily on her lap, keeping care to let the edge of her foot come so close to Vickers that he was doing anything and everything to keep from sliding away, instinct to not want to appear rude, coupled with a feeling that he may even be in some subconscious way enjoying this, Brad stayed where he was. If you asked him what the meeting was about, Bliss was almost certain he couldn’t even begin to recount.  
Her eyes drifted lazily from Brad, who was just a play thing now, to the back of Barry Burton’s head. If she had ever been close enough to being a pining woman it would have been for him. Her mission stands, but… Barry was an object that she wasn’t used to handling before. Like a poor person handling gold or silk, it’s nice, but you don’t know how to begin with it, but you know its value. She had been playing Barry like a delicate harp for the month that she had been here. Her orders were pretty straight forward, no real deviance to her usual order of trade… weasel what she can out of the people she used her charm on by any means necessary, usually involving favors that left her disinfecting for a month after, never able to get the taste of rat out of her mouth, but she had been the fall for a great many power heads in this world… Barry… is not a power head in this small town that no one really knew existed but for the people who lived in it, which was a great place to hide any dirty secret.   
She stared at Barry, her focus thoroughly off Brad, and she wondered if Barry could feel her looking at him. She had learned a lot about the man since being here. She learned he is married, has two little girls and is infuriatingly loyal to them. It wasn’t the loyal part that infuriated her; it was the fact that he was… the loyalty was making her job very difficult. She didn’t think she had ever had to work so damned hard in her life to make a man break and give in to her. Then again, she sort of liked that he wasn’t so easy to manipulate. Perhaps he was just numb to her advances. Then again, she had thought she seen the look of concern… even fright a few times in those eyes when her fingers happen to touch his.   
She smiled at that. Barry is an amazing man. The first time she properly touched him in any way shape or form and though it was innocent enough, is when he reached for her hand to help her up into the helicopter and she felt her fingers tingle that left a little impression on her heart. But she thought… His hand is huge, gentle and warm. She seen his face was pink, brilliant against his hair, but she wasn’t sure if it was contact with her, or it was the stress of the situation they were going into or the heat of the day that flushed him. She didn’t dwell on it, only sat down and looked at her hand where he had touched her. It wasn’t intimate because he had helped Wesker, Chris, Jill and Joseph up like that too. It was odd at the time, since she never allowed herself to feel things when doing a job, not nice things, it was always strict business. It had to have been chemical… the interaction of their bodily elements, nothing more and she disregarded it at first. But the more she thought of it, the more it churned something inside her and the more she grew frustrated with herself for what she perceived as a bit of human weakness.   
One thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to land him by pissing about. Some of her superiors, the thought angered her, were growing impatient with her. She didn’t get this high in the food chain because she sucked at what she did… it’s just, Barry wasn’t caving. If Brad had more to lose than his sanity, she could use him to do the job… but… he is such a fucking coward. Chris would not work because he is too militant. He would rather die than succumb and he too lacked proper leverage to bend him. Joseph too lacked it, the only one, really, on the team with something to lose was Barry. Of course, this only came to light after she had started. No one told her, ‘look, here is a married man; we need you to bed him, have evidence and use it to force his cooperation.” No, they said, Barry Burton is your target. And that was it.   
To be fair, though, she didn’t usually need them to explain anything, she knew what she was sent in to do and the job never really deviated from the same thing, and it wasn’t like she never slept with married men before. Wedding band by no stretch of the imagination means ‘loyally taken’ to most of the scum she had romped with. However, they weren’t decent and innocent men either. They were capitalists in their trade… only interested in the next big score and if adultery was a means of getting another big payload in the pocket, where is the nearest condom?   
Don’t be fooled… doing favors for these disgusting men brought her no physical pleasure. She did what she had to do and that was it… sex was not fun for her if she didn’t really want it, really that is anyone. Only… she was a great actress… and can pull it off spectacularly so these guys she had tricked were… very forthcoming, thinking that she was going to be their mistress forever. She never liked them… none of them, they were all dirty scumbags with deceit on their tongues. She didn’t feel bad for them when they eventually died… but here is Barry, whose worst crime ever is probably jaywalking… which he probably never did either.   
Despite the fact that she usually didn’t care about this shit, he really didn’t deserve it. Most if not all of her conquests deserved their inevitable fates… and she didn’t give a fuck about them. If they were married and had children, the fact that they were such fraudulent fucks and cheating on their spouses, she felt she was doing their wives and children a service in the end really. So it was never any real sweat off her back.  
“Captain Whitely.” A voice called her out of her rumination. Her head jutted up and Wesker was looking at her. Then she realized everyone else was too. Her eyes met all of them in turn. They didn’t display more than just the usual expectance of a reply. Only she was very aware that Barry had looked at her but quickly turned his eyes from her and it made her sad, though she hid it well. Of course, Vickers did the same thing, but in contrast, she wanted to laugh at him.   
“Do you have anything to add?” Wesker asked pointedly. She again did a sweep of all the rooms’ occupants and then smiled and folded her arms over her chest.   
“No, I think you pretty much covered everything fine, sir.” She said with a heckling grin. He may be more important to the job at hand and taking orders from him, but that didn’t stop her from hating his guts and more importantly, showing she hated him. Not that he cared that she felt that way, unless he made effort to get others to trust him, and it seemed everyone in the room did but her… he didn’t give two fucks about who hated him.   
Wesker stared at her. He was emotionless as usual. If he weren’t wearing those stupid sunglasses, she was sure his eyes would be a bit more telling that the set of his face. She was almost positively sure he could kill with his eyes if the laws of physics bent that way. Then again, around Wesker… no natural laws of human kind ever seemed to apply. But for whatever displeasure he may have felt, he didn’t display it. He stood up and turned his head away from her addressing the room again with closing statements and as he droned on, she felt her mind slip away again as he eyes drifted to Barry. She would have to try getting to him again. Wesker was expecting it… not only him but hire-ups too. Wesker wasn’t the top of the food-chain…not now. But she expected he had the capability to become one… if not THE ONE. Synonymous with the beast.   
“Hey…’ A voice said lightly near her and it made her jump. How is it she is letting things like this happen? She hadn’t even known the meeting had closed, her eyes were fixed on Barry and she didn’t notice Jill approach her.  
“Hey.” Bliss said lazily as she stood and stretched. Just for a moment, and to perhaps make herself feel a little better about having let Jill come close without her knowing, she poked Brad in the back, who was standing in front of her. He of course jumped a mile and turned to look at her. She smiled cutely at him and shrugged.  
“You did good tonight, Brad.” She said with a slight purr that turned his face red.  
“Uh… th-thanks… Good night, Captain Whitely.” He said with a shaky voice. She smiled before he could turn and whispered.   
“Bliss… please!” But he didn’t correct himself, he just gave an uncomfortable smile and walked away quickly, like she may have been following close behind breathing fire on his neck. She chuckled, watching him run. Jill watched Brad leave too and meant to say something to her at her odd choice of flirting with Brad. Brad isn’t a bad guy… just, in her mind, an odd interest for a woman like Bliss. Then again, she really doesn’t know her that well and really who was she to judge?  
“We’ll be waiting downstairs.” Chris said near the door with Forest just behind him, Wesker already having left, just after Brad. Barry was still at his desk writing something down in a file he had open in front of him. Jill nodded and waved at them. She looked back at Bliss, who was not looking at anything going on, just the back of Barry.  
“Hey, I was wondering. A few of us are going to J’s for a drink. We wanted to know if you’d care to join.” Bliss turned her eyes to the other woman and looked at her for a moment. Is she making a positive impression on these people? Are they starting to like her? It was odd, usually she had to try. She wasn’t trying…   
“Uh… well.’ She had to think about it for a moment, Barry still looked like he was fixed on his task and she really wanted… no… needed… to get him alone again. “Sure.” She said, hoping the approval would get rid of Jill faster since denial may lead to Jill trying to convince her that it was a good idea. And it worked. Jill smiled and touched her shoulder.  
“Awesome. We’ll meet you there. How will you be getting there, anyway? If you want, Chris is driving and we are carpooling there. We can give you a lift.” Jill asked. Bliss was starting to get irritated, even though the frivolous trifles didn’t take up time in any manner, she was just eager to start working on Barry.  
“Who else is going?” Bliss asked.   
“Well, its me, Chris, Forest… Barry has to go home. Brad… he said he may show up.” Jill said. Bliss sighed inwardly at the fact that Barry wouldn’t be there, which means Jill needed to leave now so she can have a shot at him before he goes home.  
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a moment.” She said. Jill grinned at her and said something that she really hadn’t heard, she was just interested in Barry at that time, as with everything else, when she stalked a victim, it was her… and her prey. All else vanished. But Jill left the room and Bliss couldn’t care less about it. She simply took in a breath and let it out slowly as she came up behind Barry, placing a warm slender hand in the middle of his back. She felt him jump a little. She’d like to think it was her power of seduction that made him jump… but he probably was engrossed in his work and hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone. He turned a little, looked down at her and smiled.  
“Oh… I thought I was alone.” He said and she wanted to believe his voice trembled but it was rather steady. She returned the smile and looked at him deeply.   
“You are alone… with me. What are you doing here?” She said in a little purr as she leaned forward toward him but reaching for the file he had just closed on his desk. She came close enough that she knew he could smell her scent. No man can resist smelling the scent of another from this proximity whether it was purposeful or not. She felt him tense this time and it wasn’t her imagination. She picked up the file, her hand now on his solid forearm as she waved the manila folder open and looked at the writing, not really reading it. She was angling her eyelids down to show Barry her lengthy eyelashes… the full effect of how soft and dreamy they are.   
“Notes on the meeting. I take them in case there is something we miss” Barry said and casually pulled away from her but not rudely or far away. She felt empty without his arm under hand and she looked up at him, leaning in slightly after having looked around theatrically to see if anyone was listening.  
“Since when did you become Wesker’s transcriptionist?” She asked in a deeper purr, the one she used that seemed to shoot like a bullet to any man’s balls. Barry’s eyes were very focused on hers, his lips moved but he didn’t say anything. She thought for a moment she had gotten to him then but he cleared his throat and took the file from her gently, bent over to place it in the cabinet and then stood up to look at her. She had pulled back a little and looked a little displeased.  
“I always take notes, Captain Whitely. We really all should be, it’s something we are trained to do. Details can be overlooked many times by many different eyes… that’s why we take notes; in the hopes that some variation of words will spur some insight.” He said. She bit her lip and crossed her arms.  
“I have asked you to call me Bliss. Why do you refuse to call me by my name?” She asked and was irritated at the way she sounded… almost whiny and hurt but with a little harshness. Barry smiled at her and patted her shoulder.  
“You’re my superior technically. Its respect; I don’t call Wesker… Albert.” He said and chuckled as he looked toward Wesker’s desk.   
“I am not your captain.”   
“But you are a captain none the less… Miss Whitely. It’s not meant to be rude, it’s formal.” Barry said, turning in place to grab the light jacket off the back of the chair and draped it over his arm and looked down at her.  
“You never are the rude type.” She said sadly as she looked down at his desk. She fully expected him to walk by her, wish her a good night and leave her alone. But to her intense shock he stayed there and looked at her. Out of all of the STARS members, it was Wesker, Brad and Barry she had the most contact with. Wesker was her boss… Brad was a weasel to play with and was too frightened of her to get anything from him… Barry… was so nice to her and she hated it. She wished he would be a slob like the rest and make this so much easier.  
“You know… my wife tells me that I always had a knack for reading people’s emotions in their eyes.” Barry said softly. Bliss lifted her eyes to look at the STARS emblem hanging on the wall behind Wesker’s desk. What was this? Was Barry about to give her a speech? She groaned inwardly but couldn’t help but listen. Usually when the object of her focus started rambling on, she would silence them with a sudden hard and lustful kiss that would stop any lengthy conversation. But she couldn’t make herself do this to Barry. Something about him… kept her from hurting him.   
“Oh? Really?”   
“Yeah. I can tell when people are happy, angry… sad. I can tell you’re sad a lot.” Barry said as he brought his hands in front of him, clasped at his lower belly. She looked at him full in the eyes as if she didn’t understand what he was talking about. She smiled confusedly.   
“I’m sad? You think I am sad?” She asked.  
“well yeah. You smile… but it’s just your mouth. You don’t really feel it.” Barry said nodding. She stopped smiling and turned away from him, showing him her back. It made her angry that he could see through her when no one else apparently could and it made her feel weak.   
“You don’t know what I feel.” She snapped. He placed a consoling hand on her shoulder.  
“I do. I know what you have in your head…’ Barry said seriously. “Look.” He nudged her to turn around and she did grudgingly. He reached over to his desk and picked up a picture and her heart sank. She knew, if she wanted to be honest with herself from the beginning, that he would pull this gun on her. “This is my family.” He showed her the photo. It was him, he had a huge grin on his face, two little girls wrapped up in his huge arms and a beautiful brunette woman standing next to him holding onto his arm. It looked recent, the gloss of the picture very shiny and a bit sticky.   
“My wife, Kathy… and my daughters Moira and Polly. To think… when they were born I wanted to call them Shera and Sonya… My wife wouldn’t hear of it although I thought those names I would pick seem more normal than Moira and Polly. But now, they are my little angels. I love them… and I love my wife. I promised Moira and Polly that their mother and I would take them to Disney World in the summer time. You should have seen their faces, if they had little cherub wings, the starry look in their eyes could make a person cry. God, I love them.” He said as he looked fondly down at the picture of his family in her hand.   
There was something inside her that made tears form in her eyes although she was able to raise a dry face to him. She wasn’t sure if she was jealous of his wife… or disappointed that this undying love for his family would make her job damned near impossible… or… was the tears because she found it touching? Was she angry because he pretty much told her she ain’t got a chance? Or was she hurt because she knew she didn’t and wanted too… not even for the job… but because for the first time, she felt that the object of her job was such a pure soul? She knew one thing was for certain… she hated herself for feeling this way and knowing she would have to return to the battlefield after being pulled off of it by him. Thus dragging him back into the action too, only next time, he may not be so nice to her about it. Like it or not, this little family photo sharing moment was his way of telling her he couldn’t be with her. She wasn’t stupid.   
“They’re beautiful.” She choked and handed it back to him. He took it from her and she could tell he wanted to say something else but she wasn’t going to let him… she turned and tried to walk away. She didn’t want him to say anything else, explain anything because it would make having to start on him again, all the harder… and she didn’t know if she could bare it. She was honest with herself in her head; she pictured herself in his wife’s place. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him and her not be repulsed, but actually want him to kiss and make love to her, Barry Burton, the man who saved her from her damned life… whisked her off her feet and slayed the dragon named Wesker.  
Barry reached out and took her arm. It was a hard grab but not to bruise. He knew she got his point but he didn’t want her leaving hurt so much that she couldn’t even come back or talk to him as a friend. He didn’t know about her job… to him, she was just flirting with him in the hopes to perhaps start a relationship. Innocent thoughts.  
“Bliss, I’m not trying to upset you. I just can’t… give you what you want.” He said to the back of her head. He said her name this time. She trembled a little, it was a real tremble that was hurt and jealousy and… god forbid… a little love for him that refused to be snuffed out by the rejection.  
“Well… it thoroughly sucks to be me, doesn’t it?” She hadn’t meant to really say it like that but it was sort of true. Her woman frailty showing as her lip trembled and she covered her face with her other hand. This could have been all part of the act… perhaps he would take pity on her and… do it anyway. But part of it wasn’t an act… she really was hurt and it scared her.  
“Look, why don’t you come over and meet my wife and kids. I’m having a barbeque Fourth of July weekend. You are invited if you want to come.”   
“That is not helping Barry,” She thought to herself. She smiled and breathed deeply, finally turning around to face him, he let go of her and looked at her expectantly.  
“Well… I would if the case keeps me here that long. But if I have learned anything about the Raccoon City STARS, is you’re an efficient lot. I don’t suppose I will be here much longer. So I will have to say no.” She noted the crestfallen look on his face. In some way she felt sorry and in another she felt avenged for him denying her and then following his win with a kick to the gut by offering for her to meet his wife and kids.   
“Oh… well that’s too bad. I know my wife and daughters would have loved to meet you.” Barry said honestly. His wife and kids are very social and love to meet new people from different parts of the world, still an American though; she is originally from the other side of the continent.   
“Yeah… poor me.” She said bitterly and started to walk away. She wasn’t sure he heard her but as she walked toward the door, he came up behind her and opened it. Gentleman and very confusing. She allowed it though, she stepped through to the hallway and he closed the door behind him. She started walking the opposite way than where he was going.  
“Are you going to be okay?” Barry asked. She continued to walk and laughed inwardly.   
“I’ll be just fine.” She said unconcernedly. The doors to other wings were usually locked and she paused at the door, pretending to look for her keys in her pockets. Truth is, she didn’t want to walk the other way with Barry, she had enough of the uncomfortable feelings to last her a life time just now… it would kill her to have to be with him longer… to smell the musk of his cologne, to hear his gentle voice, his concern over her…   
“God dammit.” She seethed and as she pulled the ring of keys from her pocket, they fell to the floor and she stooped to pick them up, embarrassed. How is it, in a fifteen minute time span she was made to feel so many human emotions and awkwardness that she hadn’t felt in years? She stood with her keys tinking together, she looked over her shoulder and Barry was not there. He had left. She sighed and looked down at the keys in her hand sadly and then started walking back toward the other door slowly. Not hurrying because she wanted Barry to get away. And now that he had plainly left without a care in the world, to go home to his loving wife and children she didn’t have to avoid him. Likely to kiss and tuck his girls to bed and then make love to his wife, she felt her progress slow and then stop. She was in front of the STARS office door again. The door she had just been at opened up and she turned her head.  
Wesker was coming into the hall and he, as usual, didn’t have any sort of expression on his face as he walked up to her. He stopped and looked down at her.  
She looked back but was uncomfortably aware that he must have been watching and listening. He has to be displeased that she wasn’t able to do her job again as he had already spoken to her about her lack of movement.   
“I see you didn’t do your job effectively again.” He said tonelessly. She pursed her lips in frustration.   
“Well, its not my fault. I am trying.” She said, and no matter what she feels, there was that little slice of her that was irritated that her usual moves didn’t work this time where they had always worked without fail.  
“I wonder if you really are.” He said and stepped closer. She stiffened and pressed to the door of the office, afraid.   
“I’m trying! He’s just not budging! If I can try with someone else!” Bliss said.  
“No one else will work and you know that well.” Wesker said with a grim set of his mouth and he grabbed her by the neck, pushing her to the door. She grimaced and grabbed at his arm, cold and unmoving compared to Barry’s warm soft arm. Wesker’s grip around her throat was like an iron cuff tightening. ”I would not think twice about snapping your neck. However, it has been heavily frowned upon. One day, this little cat and mouse game you are playing will come to a very… sudden end if you do not produce results. Do you understand me?” He asked with no inflection in his tone to show he was under any strain by her struggling to get out of his grasp.  
“Y-Yes!” She groaned.   
“You had better. And you had better hope that what I think I saw in that office was an act… because if it wasn’t, we’d kill Barry’s wife and children… and end your suffering.” He gave a final squeeze to punctuate the point and released her. She hit the opposite wall from the door where Wesker had chucked her and she slid halfway down, clutching her neck and gasping for air.   
She heard the door open and then heard it close. She was alone again and this time she started crying. It wasn’t fair. If Wesker was watching, he’d known she tried… it wasn’t her fault the person they made her go after was a decent, loving, loyal man and husband! It wasn’t her fault that normally her job did not call her to go up against a man like Barry who gently pushed her only arm’s length away. Usually it was either ‘come here and spread your legs’ or ‘get away from me slut’… which the latter was not one she usually heard… Barry broke both and said ‘no… but please let’s be friends’. He didn’t really say that, but his kind rejection of her advances and then offering her to come over his house was just… SO HUMAN it was sickening. She hated him for making her feel this way. She loved him now because no other man COULD make her feel that way… and it scared her too. Because if she didn’t go after him again. Keep trying… Wesker would kill his family. It would be one thing to kill him; it would hurt her… and his family. But if Wesker was good on his threat and killed Barry’s family for her failure… she would have to spend the rest of her time here watching him mourn for his family and that… was worse than anything else, especially when he very apparently loves them so.   
She cried heavily, not even caring if Wesker happened back in and killed her for it. It would really mean nothing except she wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. She didn’t know how to handle what Barry had done to her and he did surprisingly little to affect her this way. And what he had done… any honest man would have.  
The door opened and she struggled to get to her feet, thinking Wesker had come back to silence her. Her head jerked toward the door he had exited but saw no one. Her head jerked back the other way and Barry was coming back down the hall and he was slowing down as he looked at her, his face a little pale at the sight. She didn’t think he was displeased to see her… she imagined she looked a little strange leaning on the wall crying and it worried him. He rushed over to her, took her by the arms and lifted her off the wall like she weighed nothing. He stood her up straight and looked at her.  
“Are you okay?” He asked quickly.   
“I’m fine- why are you here?” She asked as she flinched when he touched her, he was trying to look her in the face but she kept turning away.  
“I came back because I forgot my keys… Jesus… what happened to you?” He asked a little worried as he grabbed at one of her flailing wrists, which she was able to twist out of then at the other which she did the same with instead, she grabbed at the front of his vest and pulled him to her. She pressed herself against him, slowly bringing her arms around his middle, trying to get him to wrap his arms around her in turn. It was plain he wasn’t having it. Whether it was because he was too concerned about the state of her or he was well aware of why she was wrapping her arms around him, he placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away, keeping his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from coming at him again.  
“Hold me…” She said to him – no, begged him. If he knew what was good for him and his wife and children, he’d do it… but he can never know there was a price for his uncooperativeness. Her fingers still holding the seams of his jacket. He either ignored her or he didn’t hear her because he was looking at her neck.   
She realized that Wesker likely left marks there and Barry could see. She lowered her head and her hands came away, unsure if she should cover her neck or pretend there was nothing there.   
“Who did this to you?” He asked seriously as he reached up to take her jaw. She lurched backward to avoid him touching her like that – which did not go with what she was supposed to be doing, only she didn’t want him to examine the marks that were on her skin… she couldn’t reasonable explain where they’d come from. Barry looked a little startled at her reaction but he came up, grabbed one of her wrists with a little more force and took her jaw as gently as he could while she struggled against him. She slapped at him and clawed at his arms, not wanting him to examine the damage and then expect a divulgence of how and why… His thick fingers traced the lines on her neck and he flushed when he saw her skin goose under his touch, her pulse quickened under the fingers of his other hand and he swallowed hard. He looked at her and stepped away after examining her neck and released her.  
“Those are finger marks. Who did that to you?” He could tell she was thinking as she looked up at him, her hands coming up involuntarily to her neck to touch where the marks had been made. It wasn’t difficult, it hurt.   
“I…’ she said and looked around. She was good at lying on the fly… but really, how can she lie about this without making herself look crazy or implicating Wesker and putting Barry’s family in danger? “I did it to myself.”   
“What?” He asked with a note of disbelief.   
“You heard. It’s how I cope… people use drugs… people use alcohol… I use violence on myself to cope.” She said and it sounded very convincing although she had a feeling he didn’t buy it.  
“You… strangled yourself that hard? For what?!” He was confused.  
“So many questions… The others are waiting for me downstairs if they haven’t taken off yet. Your lovely wife and your darling daughters are waiting for the man of the house to come home and cater to them. Should you keep them waiting, Barry?” She said sarcastically, not really angry at him but he was the only one there to take her frustration out on at the moment, and when she gets frustrated, she gets reckless. He gave her a strange look and backed away a little.  
“Why would you do that to yourself?”   
“Because I am bat-shit crazy!” she said in a high uncontrolled hysterical laugh and came up to Barry, pressing herself against his side, not caring at the frightened and hurt look on his face, knowing she would regret this recklessness very soon if not immediately. She pressed herself, making sure he could feel her breasts against him and her hand came up his belly and hooked around his beard and she whispered.  
“I’ll see you in the morning, Barry. Sleep well… don’t let her keep you up all night.” She watched as she did this, his face morph from fear, to concern to anger as she pulled away and walked down the hall toward the stairs. She didn’t want to look at him, wanted to hurry away before he could say anything to her that would hurt her. After all the kindness and patience he showed her… she disregarded it and still tempted him… no wonder he was angry.  
“Work it out, Bliss… you’re a good woman. You just need to get your head on straight. Things will change.” Barry said. He didn’t know what else to say to her… he knew she was lying about the marks on her neck. He knew she has physical strength but to withstand choking herself to leave marks like that is incomprehensible. He’d try to talk to her again tomorrow, see if she would come to her senses and tell him who hurt her so they can nab the guy. She was obviously stressed because she didn’t want to be seen as weak, that is why she came on him just now. It was a power play and he was willing to let her have it if it made her feel better, but if she had tried to take it a step further, he would have had to snuff it out again. He couldn’t understand her; all he knew was that she was suffering from something that had little or nothing to do with her lust over him. There was something else going on… he just didn’t know how much he wanted to pry to find out. It really wasn’t down to him to know. But if her safety hinged on it, he’d have to get involved, the STARS… however unstable… takes care of their own. His voice was a little warbled, was it hurt or anger that did it? Perhaps both. She reached the door and she placed her hand on the knob.   
“They had better for all our sakes.” Bliss finished cryptically and left Barry in the hall by himself, now more thoroughly confused about her than he was throughout the entire night.   
Good thing for her that the following day… Bravo Team was dispatched, went missing… and then the real horror began and Bliss never had to try to seduce Barry again as she was not present when Wesker took them into the Arklay Mountains and into the Mansion. She was put on standby and told to wait for orders. Orders came to assemble a team and watch the Burton home, if Wesker gave to word, shoot and kill the wife and children. Wesker used his own brand of inclusion to force Barry’s cooperation. Bliss had felt sorry for him… wanted to help him and wondered if Barry ever pegged what she was doing as being tied to what Wesker had done. She waited for word… listening and watching via satellite on an LCD screen on her lap for any communication from the team at the Spencer estate, listening too and watching Brad circle the estate, afraid to land, calling endlessly until closer to dawn, the helicopter finally lowered… came back up… and she had to assume that he had finally managed to make contact with Alpha team. She hoped they were safe as the helicopter came away and started west… there was a deafening explosion and a fireball that used to be the Spencer Estate lit up the morning sky like a second sun eclipsing the first.   
The explosion knocked out all communication for a moment, but before she packed up her things and ran for it, she heard Brad talking to an air tower saying that he, Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers and Barry Burton had made it out alive. The STARS Captain and Bravo Team were decimated. She felt a smile pass her lips. Wesker… dead… not something she was going to lose sleep over. Though her more prominent relief is that Barry made it out, the others too yes, but Barry made it out. She wondered if he knew of her involvement. She had to run now. Where? She didn’t know. All she knew was she didn’t want Barry to find her and question her about her part of that cover-up attempt. See the haunted look on his face for whatever threats Wesker bestowed on him.   
She packed all the stuff she had gathered around her at the top of a house a street away from Barry’s family’s house. She had a pistol at her side with a silencer and a sniper rifle only half set up on a tripod next to her as she heard Brad talking about the survivors. Four dead Umbrella operatives were scattered around the Burton home, her bullets lodged in their brains so that it was her alone who watched Barry’s wife and girls. Should Barry call Wesker’s bluff… she didn’t want him to find out Wesker, despite what he said, was not really bluffing at all about the dangers to his family. If Wesker had passed the order to kill Barry’s family, it would be her who would get the call… it would be her at the trigger… it would be her who would not do as instructed, on her own head be it… but she was not going to let Barry get hurt like that. Let them come after her… Barry would send his family away, she just knew it, but he’d be the type to stay and fight.   
Good thing no order came to kill them. She packed everything away and stood up and looked at the family home to a life she will never have and mused only a moment longer about where her life would lead from here on in. At least she still has a bit of a toe in with Umbrella. Perhaps they can lead her away from here… away from Barry. He didn’t need her in his life causing him grief. She closed her eyes and turned away.


End file.
